BooksBarbecue
Back Loop
Chapters (33)
  1. Loop
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. A note on the text
  33. Copyright

Cuba is clearly shown as an island. Christopher Columbus described arriving in Cuba, and Severo Sarduy says in an interview that Christopher Columbus began Cuban literature when he described the birdsong before anything else. That’s how Sarduy explains the musicality of the speech, of the poetry in Cuba. In other words, the literary history of Latin America began not with text but with birdsong.

Oh, I just love that Juan de la Cosa has the word cosa in his name. Juan of the Thing. It’s like a present I don’t want to open. What thing is it? Is the Thing something like the mother of all things? The man who put the American continent on the map was called Of the Thing.

Tania on the phone: ‘You know, Juan de la Cosa could be the patron saint of artists.’

The music makes the ambivalence bearable. Not knowing if it’s land or sea. Not knowing if it carries on or stops. Not knowing if I’m swimming onwards or getting further away. But the music is so good.

Did I tell you I saw a waiter with a swallow tattooed on his arm? I asked him why he’d got that tattoo and he said he searched for ‘tattoos’ online and it was one of the first designs he saw in the results. Guillermo, tracing circles with his finger around the rim of his whisky glass, said when the waiter had left: ‘I once read that sailors had tattoos of birds because they were a sign land was near.’

Did Juan de la Cosa have any tattoos?

Miguel de Cervantes put the novel in Spanish on the map. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz put New Spain on the map. Cervantes and Sor Juana put the language on the map. The map to which Borges gave so many names. But we can’t sanctify the map, we have to get it dirty, toss in a nappy, a fizzy-drink bottle, a plastic bag. The map of the language is spacious and has room for infomercials, the latest literary releases and the day’s terrible news. Words live together as equals on that map.

The Word continues to be real and imaginary in equal amounts. The Thing could be real or imaginary. The word and the thing are ambivalent, like the land and the sea on the map from 1500.

Penelope has something of Odysseus about her. Odysseus has something of Penelope. The roles in a relationship tend to go back and forth, to swap over. The bed, that site of domestic ambivalence.

Am I getting closer or am I getting further away?

A text message. Carolina has just given birth.